Danzig was the chief seat of the pestilence in West Prussia, since large numbers of prisoners were confined there; per 10,000 inhabitants 79·6 succumbed to small-pox in the year 1871, and 35·9 in the year 1872. Says Liévin:[267] ‘For a considerable length of time no cases of small-pox occurred in Danzig, but in the month of September 1870 the beginnings of an epidemic were observed. Although this happened shortly after the arrival of the first prisoners, nevertheless the beginning of the epidemic was probably not connected in any causal way with this circumstance. For, in the first place, the prisoners were French soldiers captured in the battles of Weissenburg and Wörth, and were in all probability healthy men, judging from the fact that not a single case of the disease occurred among them in the first few months; in the second place, the disease broke out very sporadically in the first three or four months, individual outbreaks occurring here and there in the city, just as has been the case in Danzig almost every year. But during this indigenous pestilence a large number of badly infected prisoners arrived from the Metz garrison; this gave rise to an epidemic which, had the prisoners not arrived, would probably have progressed in the usual, scarcely noticeable manner; as it was, however, the epidemic attained to the largest dimensions known to the memory of man.’ According to Liévin, the total number of small-pox cases in Danzig and its suburbs (including the garrison and the prisoners-of-war) was: 1870. 1871. 1872. _Patients._ _Deaths._ _Patients._ _Deaths._ _Patients._ _Deaths._ January 123 24 245 77 February 129 28 222 77 March 201 51 153 75 April 365 70 89 33 May 459 109 34 17 June 442 123 19 12 July 182 71 13 3 August 130 49 8 7 September 2 111 37 5 2 October 4 2 124 57 2 November 13 2 136 42 December 34 3 135 39 Of the 9,189 prisoners in Danzig, 188 contracted the disease, and 24 died; the largest number of cases was reported in the month of January. Of the garrison, which consisted of 7,376 men, only 45 contracted the disease,[268] and 5 died.